Lynch sentence: 25 to 40 years

Three Oaks resident admitted role in 1979 killing of Hope student

Three Oaks resident admitted role in 1979 killing of Hope student

January 23, 2007

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (AP) -- One of six suspects charged in the brutal 1979 slaying of a Hope College student working as a hotel clerk was sentenced to 25 to 40 years in prison Monday as the student's parents looked on.

Robert Lynch, 67, of Three Oaks, was sentenced in Ottawa County Circuit Court.

The parents of the victim, 23-year-old Janet Chandler, of Muskegon, addressed Lynch for the first time, The Holland Sentinel and The Grand Rapids Press reported.

Â?You, Mr. Lynch, took her life, but you never took her soul,Â? Glenna Chandler said. Â?God will be your final judge, not us. May he have mercy.Â?

James Chandler thanked those who helped solve his daughter's 28-year-old murder, including the police cold case team and the Hope College students who revived interest in the case after producing a documentary that aired on a Grand Rapids television station.

Lynch pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December as part of a plea deal. He was among six people charged in the slaying.

Laurie Ann Swank, of Nescopeck, Pa., has agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, a potential 10- to 20-year sentence, for her role in the slaying.

Arthur Carlton Â?CarlÂ? Paiva, 54, of Muskegon; James Cleophas Â?BubbaÂ? Nelson, 59, of Rand, W.Va.; and Anthony Eugene Williams, 55, of Boscobel, Wis., have been ordered to stand trial in the case. Freddie Bass Parker, 49, of Powellton, W.Va., is fighting extradition to Michigan, saying he was not in that state when Chandler was killed.

Authorities said Chandler was working her nighttime job as a clerk at the Blue Mill Inn on Jan. 31, 1979, when she was kidnapped and taken to a house in Ottawa County's Holland Township where she was beaten, raped and strangled.

A snowplow driver discovered her body a day later about 35 miles south of Holland in a wooded turnaround on Interstate 196.